Hong Kong businessman Liu Luanxiong sells Tibetan wine: one bite of 10,000, who is "drunk"?

Per reporter: Ding Zhouyang Zhu Peng Per editor: Wen Duo

Liu Luanxiong is going to auction his private collection of rare wines, and the auction house cannot hide his excitement for this news.

The 89 sets of wines entrusted to Christie's for auction, with a total valuation of more than HK$24 million, will be auctioned on April 13. Compared with the paintings of Picasso, Van Gogh, Baschia and other famous artists who are often valued at hundreds of millions of yuan, 24 million Hong Kong dollars is not a large amount, and the importance of this auction for Christie's lies in the scarcity of rare wines, but also in the super big customer Liu Luanxiong.

Liu Luanxiong, 71, is one of the richest people in Hong Kong. He started a business in the electric fan, is famous in the stock market, accumulates wealth in real estate, and has hundreds of billions of assets, whether it is the ups and downs of the business world, emotional life or art collection, Liu Luanxiong's every move is eye-catching.

It is difficult to buy a good heart, for the sake of the heart, Liu Luanxiong is willing to throw thousands of gold. Famous paintings, jewelry, famous wine, antiques, Liu Luanxiong's collection appetite and mixed taste, in the auction house repeatedly sold, the value of his collection is so high, has been rated by the United States "Art News" as "the world's top ten art collectors".

In recent years, for the collection, Liu Luanxiong has sold some with the help of two major auction houses, and in the business world, Liu Luanxiong's once "god blocks the killing of god, Buddha blocks the killing of the Buddha" Has also converged a lot.

It is difficult to buy the heart of the heart, and it is even more difficult to buy health and true feelings. After a serious illness in 2015, Liu Luanxiong's physical condition gradually recovered, but perhaps as he said in the video interview of "Liu Luanxiong Talks about Liu Liu", "Health is the most important now, and some time with his family is more important than making money."

A mouthful of 10,000, where is this wine expensive?

"This season's auction is a tribute to Mr. Liu's searing eyes in collecting rare wines and his meticulous consideration of the origin of famous wines." Pang Zhifeng, President of Christie's Asia Pacific Region, was extremely praised for the upcoming "Liu Luanxiong Outstanding Wine Collection".

The total valuation of the batch of famous wines exceeds HK$24 million, and the average price of a single bottle is nearly HK$270,000. The same as wine, why is Liu Luanxiong so expensive?

Chen Wenxun, head of Christie's Asia Pacific wine department, said in an interview with the "Daily Economic News": "There is also a legend of the winery -- Henri Jayer, the winemaker known as the 'Burgundy Dionysian God' who passed away more than ten years ago.

Image courtesy of Christie's

Another bottle of 6-litre DRC Romanée-Conti from 1996 is valued at HK$950,000 to HK$1.4 million, an average of nearly HK$200 per milliliter. If you follow the scenes in the film and television drama, it is no exaggeration to say that a mouthful of 10,000 Hong Kong dollars is not an exaggeration.

1996 DRC Romanée-Conti Image source: Courtesy of Christie's

The Romani Kande Winery is one of the oldest wineries in France, dating back more than a thousand years. And because of the low production, Romani Kande is full of mystery, but also engaged in the luxury of the "distribution system", you need to buy a group of other wines from Kande winery at a time, will be tied to sell a bottle of Romani Kande. At sotheby's auction in 2018, Romani Kandi wines from 1945 fell to a record high price of $558,000, including taxes and commissions, 17 times the maximum price Sotheby's estimated price of $32,000.

For this auction expectation, Chen Wenxun is very confident. "First of all, the market for foreign wine is very strong now, and secondly, this batch of wine is really rare, and the source of wine is also very reliable." And there are only 89 groups, which is not expensive, so we are full of confidence. ”

For Christie's, working with top clients like Liu Luanxiong has value beyond a single auction event.

In 2010, Liu Luanxiong was listed by Art News as one of the world's top ten art collectors. Chen Wenxun told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that Liu Luanxiong once auctioned a diamond at Christie's auction a few years ago to give to his daughter, so he has always been an important customer of Christie's. "In the early stage of the cooperation, Christie's global CEO Mr. Shi Junan participated. So this is a matter that is very important from the top to the various departments. ”

Liu Luanxiong and his wife Image source: Courtesy of Christie's

Famous wines are also an important collection category of Liu Luanxiong. He said: "When I was young, I was playful, I had several parties a week, I was afraid of drinking it, and every time I hoarded red wine and bought it desperately." Later, I became addicted to buying, and after I didn't hold a party, I bought more and more. Different vintages, different brands, it cost at least a billion yuan to buy red wine. ”

In 2020 and 2021, Liu Luanxiong and Sotheby's twice held a special auction of "Liu Luanxiong's Cellar Wine". This is the first time that Christie's has received an auction commission for Liu Luanxiong's famous wine.

Why can these tibetan wines be "drunk" Christie's?

Where there is wine, there is a story.

In 2008, Hong Kong abolished import tariffs on wine and spirits, intending to create a global foreign wine trading center, one connected to the lush European wine estates, the other connected to the asian upstarts, and the influx of precious wines into this city of commerce and trade, stirring the foreign wine fever in the Asian market.

When the hot wind of foreign wine blew on Chen Wenxun, she was already a senior banker for ten years. Because of the tax exemption policy, the international auction house actively deployed the foreign wine branch in Hong Kong, and a senior executive of Sotheby's found Chen Wenxun at this time.

Chen Wenxun Image source: Provided by the interviewee

"Because my family and I were very interested in wine tasting, and I had been working in the bank for ten years and wanted to try something new, I switched careers." Chen Wenxun told every reporter that after about a decade at Sotheby's, in 2019, Christie's threw an olive branch to her to hire Chen Wenxun as the new head of the asia wine department, expand the auction house's customer base, and promote cross-category sales in the wine and art and luxury departments.

The work of the auction house has given Chen Wenxun a completely different work experience, "from the initial valuation to the final hammer transaction, the whole process is very satisfying." In addition, the rich resources of Paihang also give her the opportunity to contact the collection outside of alcohol, "I can see a lot of other beautiful things, open my eyes, and make friends." ”

"Making friends" is also an important lever for auction houses to expand their clients. It is reported that before facilitating the auction of Liu Luanxiong's private wine collection, Christie's has been cooperating with other art fields for many years and has been in communication. Chen Wenxun believes that one of the advantages of wine cooperation is that it is easy to sublimate customer relationships into friend relationships in the process of talking.

Alcohol lots are also a good jumping platform to broaden the collection category of male collectors. "Most of the male customers like wine, so the famous wine auction also provides a channel for auction houses to expand the customers of these collections of wines to such as watches or other categories." Chen Wenxun told the "Daily Economic News" reporter.

In addition to establishing long-term relationships with high-quality customers, the auction of famous wine itself also has a significance for the auction house business beyond the turnover.

Compared with the sky-high price of hundreds of millions of dollars in a painting, the "sky-high price" in the famous wine auction is somewhat dwarfed. According to Chen Wenxun, although the price of famous wine may not be as good as a painting in terms of the total amount of a single auction, it is very important for the entire business model of the auction house. "Because its price can be as low as a few thousand yuan or as high as hundreds of thousands, the famous wine auction is a category that can attract new buyers or young buyers."

According to Christie's 2021 full-year turnover data, 35% of buyers are participating in Christie's auctions for the first time, of which 32% of new buyers are millennials. After all, buyers who can target sky-high collections at the first auction are a minority, so the auction of famous wines with large price ranges and relatively lower thresholds is undoubtedly a powerful traction rope to pull potential customers.

Everything will pass outside, the ukiyo tycoon loves "Tycoon" the most

Money, beauty, famous collectors, stock market snipers, giant competition, Liu Luanxiong is entwined with various elements of ukiyo-tycoons.

In the TV interview of "Liu Luanxiong Talks About Big Liu", the reporter asked Liu Luanxiong: "Is your total value in collection 20 billion yuan?" Liu Luanxiong's first reaction was: "Do you mean Hong Kong dollars?" Of course, there are more than that number of Hong Kong dollars. ”

Liu Luanxiong once said: "As long as there are works that flow out of the market that are good enough and beautiful enough, I want them, so I buy more and collect miscellaneous, and I am the most mixed collector in the world who can buy hundreds of millions of dollars of paintings."

Speaking of his record, I have to mention the 2012 Sotheby's auction. At that time, Liu Luanxiong won a Northern Song Dynasty Ru kiln azure glazed sunflower wash for HK$208 million, setting a world record for the auction of Ru kiln.

After experiencing the test of life and death in 2015, Liu Luanxiong was very different from the past. "Health is the most important thing now, for me, what is the use of making so much money, it is better to spend more time with my family." 」

2020 is Liu Luanxiong's auction year, and his cut love collection is very rewarding – David Hockney's famous painting Splash of Water sold for more than 200 million yuan; painter Chang Yu's Four Nudes on a Green Background sold for HK$258 million; and Blue Flower Pot and Chrysanthemum, with Crossed Legs and Chrysanthemum blooming in a blue flower pot sold for more than HK$520 million.

David Hockney's famous painting "Splash" Image source: Beijing Youth Daily/Visual China

In response to his "love history basket", Liu Luanxiong said: "I have experienced the stage of a lady and a gentleman, and now when I look back, it is really a mirror flower and a moon." ”

The ukiyo tycoon said that one of his favorite songs is Xu Xiaofeng's "Tycoon", and looking at the lyrics of this song by Huang Xia, it is not difficult to read Liu Luanxiong's current state of mind. "What you gain, what you lose, you have seriously calculated." Why bother, why bother, knowing that everything he will go out of his body. Gain more, lose more, rise to the top will eventually fall low. Why bother, why bother, throw away all the shackles that bind the body and mind, and look deeply into the heart, and carefully pursue the peace of mind. ”

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